Comcast has made an offer for the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox, outbidding the Walt Disney Company by around 19%. The offer, which would bring the NBC Universal and Fox movie and TV studios, cable networks and other operations including Sky under the same roof, was delivered by Comcast in a letter to the Fox board of directors yesterday. Comcast’s offer is for $35 per share in cash, with a value of $65 billion. In December, Fox shareholders agreed to sell the assets to Walt Disney for $52.4 billion in an all-stock transaction.
Comcast is also making an offer to buy Sky, and said it would continue to pursue the acquisition in parallel with the Fox deal. The UK government approved both this offer and the Fox proposal to buy full control of Sky earlier this month.
On Tuesday this week, a US federal court judge cleared the way for AT&T to acquire Time Warner, dismissing the government’s view that the takeover would be anti-competitive. The offer, worth $106 billion, was first made in December 2016. Barring a further move to block the deal by the US government, AT&T said it would aim to complete the deal by 20 June.

US-based Snap, parent of messaging app Snapchat, has launched its second wearable product Spectacles V2.
Available for USD 150 via the Snapchat app and website, the new Spectacles sunglasses will be available in more than 20 markets in the first couple of weeks of launch and feature: photo as well as video capture, HD recording by default, improved Bluetooth pairing, prescription lenses support, and new colour options.

Sprint (Softbank) and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) have announced a new plan to merge the two US businesses in an all stock merger that will leave Deutsche Telekom with a 42% stake to Softbank’s 27%. The combined company will maintain the T-Mobile brand and serve a base of 127 million subscribers, approaching the country’s top two mobile operators, Verizon and AT&T.

Samsung is packing its main innovative push into the cameras of its latest flagship Galaxy S devices. With the new super slow motion video capture, Samsung has improved on previous industry attempts to commercialize this feature. The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus are strong handset designs which evolve from 2017’s excellent S8. They are markedly different in camera quality and display size from the two to three year old smartphones potential customers own now which should boost upgrades. However, consumers may delay purchase because of rising flagship prices.

After removing media cross ownership rules earlier in the week, the FCC chair Ajit Pai has released the agenda for the FCC’s next meeting on 14th December and included a proposal to “Restore Internet Freedom” that would see net neutrality regulations rolled back if it is passed by the commissioners.

A day after the announcement that merger talks between Sprint and T-Mobile US have ended, Altice USA has announced an MVNO agreement with Sprint. The US cable operator will use Sprint’s network to provide mobile voice and data services. In return, Altice has allowed Sprint to access its cable network infrastructure. This will aid Sprint’s network densification process, helping the mobile operator deploy small cells throughout the US.

Uber partnered with Barclays and Visa to launch Uber Visa Card. In addition to increasing incentive offerings and enhancing the payment experience, Uber also aims to access customer information and data to expand its role in online and offline commerce.

This insight article (second of two part series) analyzes Apple’s external and internal environment that contributed to a patent war against Qualcomm and the potential impact the patent war can have on the smartphone industry.

Google has invested $1.1bn to acquire a part of HTC. Google’s latest hardware investment demonstrates the importance it places on mobile hardware. The move also demonstrates HTC’s importance to the Pixel line which Google downplayed a year ago.

The Galaxy Note 8 demonstrates Samsung’s confidence in its design expertise because of the strong similarities between the Note 8 and the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Samsung’s decision to launch the Note across all regions means the Note 8 should be the most successful Note smartphone for at least three years. IHS Markit expects the Note 8 Bill of Materials (BOM) cost will exceed those of all previous generations of Note models from Samsung.

On January 20, 2017 Apple filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm at the Southern District Court of California. In the lawsuit, Apple accused Qualcomm of breach of contract, violation of unfair competition laws and requested judgement on royalty rate it must pay for Qualcomm’s standard essential patents. (SEPs) Since Apple’s initial legal lawsuit, both companies filed additional lawsuits in different jurisdictions and the dispute grew into a full scale patent licensing war.
This article provides summary and analysis of the licensing dispute between Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.

Three of South Korea's leading broadcasters have launched Kocowa (Korean Content Wave), an online video streaming service, in the US. The service, launched on 24 July, is backed by Korean Content Platform (KCP), a US-based joint venture company between Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS). The service offers content from these broadcasters with English subtitles, with some shows airing six hours after broadcast in South Korea.

Content security firm Verimatrix has acquired Genius Digital’s Mirimon engineering team, technology, and associated IP. The Mirimon stack comprises a set of technologies that allow service providers to harvest data from a range of end-user devices, and from operator-managed consumer premises equipment (CPE) in particular. Verimatrix’s Verspective analytics proposition will integrate the technology.
The acquisition’s value is unknown. However, given that Genius Digital generated turnover of roughly USD 1.5m in 2015, IHS Markit believes that the deal was modest in size.

Altice will rebrand its portfolio of businesses under its own name, as part of a new unified global branding strategy. This will help Altice to reposition itself in the French market, while uniting its US operations before pursuing further M&A opportunities in the country, potentially including an entry into the mobile and content markets after further expansion in the cable market.

The S8 and S8+ are visibly differentiated smartphones because of their large Samsung displays, tiny bezels, and fast chipsets which all play to Samsung group’s competitive strengths. Samsung’s initial Bixby AI implementation falls short of its goal of being a comprehensive AI assistant because of weak app integration and limited voice compatibility. Provided Samsung can manufacture sufficient volumes of S8 and S8 + smartphones, and has no new reliability issues, the S8 will be a success for Samsung. The strong industrial design will support the Samsung brand and provide a foundation for Samsung’s ecosystem ambitions with VR, Bixby AI, and enterprise offerings.

A software update to the Huawei Mate 9 in the US installs Huawei’s Alexa app on the handset. With the integration of Amazon Alexa, Huawei is taking its virtual assistant strategy beyond China where the company is relying on its own ecosystem.

IHS Markit has published the new data for Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. The new data provides information on Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay’s addressable smartphones by region and by country for 60+ countries from 2014 to 2021